Buddhist Warfare
Page 21
According to the Vinaya, certain interdictions surround ordainment. Many such interdictions revolve around physical or social characteristics that would preclude ordination, such as if a person has a disease, is a criminal, or is disabled. Most of these guidelines resulted from the historical Buddha trying to cope with specific sociopolitical and economic dilemmas. For example, a prohibition evolved that specifically relates to the ordaining of soldiers:
During the time of the Buddha there was a war on the border of the northern Indian kingdom of Magadha, one of the primary supporters of Buddhist monasticism. Several generals who did not want to join the battle entered the Buddhist Sangha. At the request of the king, the Buddha declared that henceforth soldiers were not allowed into the Sangha. (Vin. I, 73–74)
Since this historic incident, the official doctrinal stance has been to prohibit active soldiers from entering the sangha, though we have already noted that this interdiction is subject to regional and historical exceptions. Richard Gombrich, a well-respected scholar of Theravda Buddhism, has offered a slightly different context for this doctrinal prohibition:
A minister advised the king that anyone who thus deprived him of his soldiers deserved to be executed. As the king was on good terms with the Buddha, he advised him that other kings might not take such as a thing lying down. Reading between the lines, we can deduce that he warned the Buddha that for their own good the Sangha had better not ordain soldiers.17
The Thai state has formally acknowledged and supported the ecclesiastical interdiction on ordaining soldiers. In 1905, to avoid the overlapping of duties to the state and sangha, the Chulalongkorn administration created a legal provision called the Thai Military Service Act, exempting monks from military service. The act also eliminated the tensions concerning the possibility of monks enlisting in the army. Thus, in accordance with ecclesiastical restrictions, the Thai Military Service Act was designed to prevent the monk-to-soldier process. However, later in contemporary Thai society, it became clear that the tension was not the result of the monk-to-soldier process, but the reverse: the soldier-to-monk process.
By means of its temporary ordinations, the Thai Buddhist tradition allows maneuverability around these obstacles to the existence of Buddhist soldiers. According to stipulations articulated by the Office of National Buddhism, soldiers are allotted one four-month paid leave of absence during their service in order to ordain at a local monastery (wat). Soldiers generally take this leave during the annual Buddhist Lent (which generally lasts from June until October). They return to duty after the rainy season retreat has ended. This leniency surrounding ordination is extended even further by another and more covert exercise regarding the status of military monks.
As early as 2002, a covert military unit (authorized by a confidential department) began directing Buddhist soldiers to ordain while remaining on active duty. Every year since, military monks have been assigned to specific posts. According to some of the military monks I interviewed, this secret military unit operates semi-independently. Its operations are unknown to most of the military in Bangkok, although there have been numerous reports implicating the Thai monarchy, especially Queen Sirikit. For example, there have been reports of groups of military monks becoming ordained in honor of the queen’s birthday.
It is difficult to determine how many Thais in the military truly do not know about military monks as opposed to those who know but who refuse to disclose what they know. As the state-appointed guardian of Thai monastic lifestyles and activities, the Office of National Buddhism does not acknowledge the presence of military monks. When asked about their presence, the director dismissed the issue:
Why would soldiers have to dress like a monk? In dangerous monasteries, we have soldiers there to take care of them. And this point is a really serious point in Thai Buddhism. We can’t let something like this exist. The monk can’t fight and can’t have weapons. People may think this is possible, but it’s not.18
The official position of the Office of National Buddhism mirrors that of the Thai Buddhist Vinaya. As historian Craig Reynolds notes, the Vinaya goes so far as to forbid monks from even observing an army in battle dress.19 Although the director of the Office of National Buddhism argues emphatically that military monks do not exist, they are a very real and active part of many monasteries in southern Thailand.
Accounts of military monks in southern Thailand are cloaked in rumors and secrecy.20 In numerous interviews with abbots, journalists, and local Buddhists, there were allusions to military monks; they were short references but direct confirmations nonetheless. Such brief references to military monks were always followed by bouts of hesitation and reluctance. If not for the fact that I personally and directly interviewed military monks, I might have dismissed these informants’ depictions as a communal fabrication.
To dismiss this atmosphere of secrecy as insignificant would be to dismiss the very real ideological efficacy of the military monk. Thai Buddhism is perceived as a peaceful, meditative, and supportive tradition, devoid of any violence. Monks, as embodied agents of this tradition, are considered diametrically opposed to violence and agents of war, i.e., the military. Hence, there is a reluctance to talk about military monks. Anthropologist Michael Taussig postulates that truth comes in the form of a public secret. The importance of this public secret is knowing what not to know.21 One clear indication of this tacit social understanding is the many interviews with abbots in the southernmost provinces who claim to know nothing about military monks. Contrary to their assertions, however, a high-ranking monk in the southernmost provinces confided that abbots throughout the region met in 2004 and discussed the issue of military monks receiving military stipends.22 Living in an environment that normalizes bombings and armed attacks, southern monks and some privileged members of the Buddhist laity are aware of military monks, but they also know that they should not openly speak of them. Such a discussion would combine elements that socially and religiously are considered opposites: Buddhism and violence.
The very concept of military monks does represent a powerful clash between Thai Buddhist doctrine and the Thai lived Buddhist tradition. This conflict between doctrine and praxis, when made public, creates a palpable discomfort in most Thai Buddhists. One example of this occurred during an afternoon interview with Phra Nirut, a high-ranking monk in southern Thailand. The interview was lighthearted and relaxed until I asked him about military monks. Phra Nirut paused for a few seconds and sighed. Seemingly reluctantly, he nodded, confirming that he knew a little about them. Pressing the issue a bit more, I asked his opinion of military monks: were gun-wielding monks legitimate? After the question, Phra Nirut squirmed a bit in his chair, smiled faintly, and let out a series of filler words. Finally he replied, “I cannot say. It depends on many things.” He paused again and I let the silence linger. Frowning slightly, Phra Nirut spoke again, this time in a soft voice, “For me, it is not okay. For me, it is not okay.”23
FIGURE 8.1 Thai boy mimicking an armed soldier at a Buddhist monastery during a celebration of the annual Kathin ceremony. Photo taken by Michael Jerryson.
Phra Nirut’s inability to condone military monks could very well be a reaction to their changing role in southern monasteries. Beginning in 2002 with limited guidance by the Thai sangha, military monks went to areas that lacked monks. Their presence at assigned posts was indefinite and depended upon the circumstances surrounding their assignment. If a military monk decided to quit his post, another would come to replace him.
Thai Buddhist monasteries need a minimum of five monks in order to perform crucial ceremonies, such as the annual Kathin ceremony, in which the Buddhist laity bestows new robes and gifts upon the monks at the end of Buddhist Lent. Populating these understaffed monasteries with military monks enables monasteries to perform important rituals, granting local Buddhists a chance to make merit. At the same time, through its interrelationship with the Thai sangha, the presence of these military monks also augments the state’s presence.
The situation changed in 2004, however, when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared martial law. The Thai state found a new use for military monks. Instead of assigning them to specific monasteries to fill voids in the monastic infrastructure, under martial law the stationing of military monks was to bolster the defense of particular monasteries. In 2006 and the early half of 2007, there were not many military monks in the southernmost provinces, and the ones with whom I conferred stated that there was no networking among them.
Late one evening in 2007, a monk sat with me at a table outside his quarters, relaying what he had heard about military monks:
A monastery in Narathiwat had a few monks. When insurgents attacked, the monks moved to stay in the city. The monastery became abandoned. Muslims went to the monastery to destroy the Buddha images, buildings, pavilions, and the monks’ quarters. The queen ordered soldiers to become monks and go stay in the abandoned monastery, to guard the monastery and its religious objects. In this respect, I agree that there has to be military monks.24
One clear indication of this strategy is the commissioning of military monks throughout the three southernmost provinces. The majority is sent to Narathiwat, the second largest group of military monks is assigned to Yala, and the fewest go to Pattani. These proportions correspond to the level of violence and instability in the three provinces since 2004. Typically, a soldier training in southern Thailand is contacted before his graduation that he has been selected to become a military monk. To proceed through full ordination as a military monk, he attends a local monastery, one in his home neighborhood or one in a more clandestine location in southern Thailand. From that point in time, the military monk serves as an active and vigilant protector of his monastery and its monks.
Early one evening, while smoking his hand-rolled cigarette within the monastery, a military monk to whom I refer as Phra Eks, proudly opened his saffron robes to show me the Smith and Wesson handgun tucked beneath the folds around his waist. He keeps his M-16 hidden in his sleeping quarters and generally carries the handgun in case of trouble. For Phra Eks, a military monk’s primary duty is to protect monks from terrorists (phkoknrai):
We need to disguise ourselves as monks to protect [the monks]. If we don’t do this, in the future, there will be no monks in the three provinces. We need to give them moral support, to serve our nation, religion, and army, to foster harmony, to prevent social disruptions, and to prevent people from abusing others.25
Phra Eks is thirty years old and comes from a poor Thai Chinese family in one of the border provinces. His father, who died when Phra Eks was very young, also served as a soldier in southern Thailand. Being one of seven children, Phra Eks helps his mother take care of his siblings by contributing part of his salary each month to the family. In this way, he is able to provide his mother with both merit and money.
Phra Eks’s disguise is more than a superficial undercover persona or a means of preserving a public secret. Seemingly contradicting himself, he also asserts that he is not pretending to be a monk; he is a real monk (phra hing). Because he considers himself to be both a soldier and a monk, I pressed Phra Eks as to his ultimate allegiance. He replied that his duties as a soldier simultaneously fulfill his duties as a monk. For Phra Eks, these two separate sets of duties do not conflict with one another. In the event the monastery is attacked and he kills an attacker, he is confident that he would remain a monk. Although killing a human being would transgress the most important of the prjikas (severe offenses that result from violating Buddhist law), Phra Eks explained the apparent contradiction. He stated that there were certain people at the monastery who would “clean up” the situation—in order to allow him to remain at his post.
Although Phra Eks recognizes the gravity of murdering a terrorist, the defense of the monastery and its occupants overshadows it. I asked Phra Eks on several occasions why the existence of military monks is necessary. He explained:
If the nation does not have Buddhism, it is a country of thievery [mang hon]. Buddhism as a religion helps to clean the heart and shape the mind. Buddhism teaches people to abandon their greed, anger, and obsessions, to live moderately. If there is no Buddhism to teach and guide people, it would be a nation of chaos filled with selfish people. … I will use a gun whenever I see someone who tries to attack monks at the monastery, such as setting fire [to the monastery], or coming to hurt or shoot the monks. I will shoot.26
To Phra Eks, a Muslim terrorist attack on Buddhist monks is symbolically an attack on the moral integrity of the nation. Without military monks, Thailand would revert to chaos; its people would become selfish. His rationalization is that this ideological threat of moral turpitude justifies the use of violence. Phra Eks’s stance on terrorists is reminiscent of the rhetoric used by ultraconservative monks in describing Communists in the 1970s. At that time, for the staunch Thai nationalist supporter Phra Kittiwuttho, Communism was ideologically antination and antireligion; a Communist was the living embodiment of Mra, the manifestation of desire. Phra Kittiwuttho perceived that the use of violence against Communists was justified:
[B]ecause whoever destroys the nation, the religion, or the monarchy, such bestial types [man] are not complete persons. Thus we must intend not to kill people but to kill the Devi [Mra]; this is the duty of all Thai.27
Kittiwuttho’s justification for opposing the Communists in the 1970s rests on two concepts: (1) the antagonist to the state is a manifestation of Mra, an embodiment of moral depravity, and (2) killing such a manifestation is not the same as killing a human being, a “complete person.”
While Phra Eks does not go so far as to dehumanize Malay Muslim terrorists, his justification for violence is eerily reminiscent of Phra Kittiwuttho’s. Phra Eks will attack those who seek to bring about a chaotic and selfish nation, a nation which Kittiwuttho would consider dominated by Mra. It is this ideological threat to the nation and Buddhist principles that provoked both monks—Phra Eks and Phra Kittiwuttho—to condone the use of violence. Unlike Phra Kittiwuttho’s rationale, however, Phra Eks’s rationalization enables him to directly enact violence. Kittiwuttho became the moral voice of the state during the violent crackdowns in 1973 and 1976.
Military Monks in Buddhist Traditions
This rationale of justifying violence due to an endangered tradition may be endemic throughout different Theravdin traditions. In Sri Lanka, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Buddhism has blurred the lines between sacred duty and murder. Sri Lankan JVP monks rationalize the violence they commit through Buddhist justifications and a legacy of Buddhist precedents. They trace these precedents back to the Sinhalese mythohistorical chronicle called the Mahvamsa. In this second-century BCE work, the Buddhist king Dutthagamani (Pli: Duagma, Sinhala: Duugämuu) wages a sacred war against foreign invaders led by the Tamil king Eara. The killing of heathens did not constitute murder, since the Tamil warriors were neither meritorious nor, more important, Buddhist.
Centuries later, during the 1980s, JVP monks reconceptualized Dutthagamani’s cause in the ethnoreligious war between the secular separatist movement LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Sinhalese Buddhist state. As they demanded President Jayewardene’s resignation in 1988, JVP monks launched a rash of violent attacks on police, teachers, and politicians. Their threats, brutal physical assaults, and an attempted assassination all became the means toward realizing an important and justifiable cause: the preservation of the nation and Sri Lankan Buddhism.28 Interestingly, the rhetoric employed by JVP monks is similar to Kittiwuttho’s rhetoric regarding Communists, and not too different from the mentality of the Thai military monk Phra Eks. This commonality suggests a uniform latent tendency in Theravdin Buddhist traditions for justifying violence.29
In addition, this tendency to justify Buddhist violence—and the advent of military monks—can be traced beyond the borders of southeast Eurasia and beyond the borders of Theravdin Buddhism to Mahyna Buddhism. Historically in eastern Eurasia, under the canopy of Mahyna Buddh
ism, there were situations in which both monasteries and monks were militarized. In China, there have been many instances, such as the messianic Maitreya rebellions during the Sui and Tang dynasties (613–626), when soldier-monks led revolts and rebellions. In 1891, after examining the militant aspects of Chinese Buddhism, J. M. M. de Groot offered the following ideological rationale for the militarism:
A last reason for the warlike behavior of Buddhist monks we see in an imperative order of the Fan-mang-king to all the devotees of the Church, to afford protection to the Sam-Pao, or the triad embracing the Buddha, the Law and the Clergy. No one, says the book, can ever hope for the bodhisattva-dignity, unless he conforms in every respect to this most holy duty of all the children of Buddha. Now, defending the Sam-Pao is identical with protecting monasteries and sanctuaries against hordes of invaders and rebels, who as is fully proved by China’s history of all periods, have never manifested one whit more clemency for religious than for secular buildings.30
Throughout Chinese Buddhist monks’ scriptures, we find Buddhist militarism repeatedly justified in order to protect sacred spaces. This phenomenon is not limited solely to China. During the course of defending Korea’s borders between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, Korean armies enlisted monks as soldiers to fight the waves of successive invaders: Jurchen, Mongol, Japanese, and Manchu.